Frank Ordoñez / The Post-StandardLouisville quarterback Justin Burke looses the football while being sacked by Syracuse University defensive end Mikhail Marinovich during Saturday's game in the Carrier Dome. Louisville and SU are the only Big East teams that don't have a bye week during the league season this year.

Syracuse, NY -- As the Syracuse University football team heads into a crucial Big East game at Rutgers on Saturday, the Orange has its usual week to prepare for the Scarlet Knights -- six days to recover from the bumps and bruises left over from the previous Saturday’s 28-20 home loss to Louisville.

Meanwhile, the Scarlet Knights will have had nine full days to get over its injuries from a 28-27 loss at South Florida on Nov. 3.

Thanks to the Big East's television contract with ESPN which calls for three games to be made available for broadcast Dec. 4 – college football’s “championship weekend” – six teams get an extra week to play their confernce schedule. Every team, that is, except last year’s cellar teams – Louisville and Syracuse.

In essence, the two teams that finished 1-6 in conference play in 2009 earned themselves a tougher road to respectability the following season.

The Scarlet Knights were able to parlay their extra bye week (Oct. 30) into a cushy lead-in to its Big East stretch run.

Rutgers plays two conference games – Nov. 3 in Tampa and Nov. 13 at home against SU – over the same 21-day period in which the Orange plays three. That’s 10 and nine days of rest, respectively, for the Scarlet Knights between games with Pittsburgh (Oct. 23), USF and SU.

The six teams have extra bye weekends, either on Oct. 30 (Rutgers and South Florida) or Nov. 6 (Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Cincinnati and Connecticut). Like Rutgers, most built schedules that include mid-week games, giving themselves a two-games-in-21-days breather before entering the stretch run of the season.

After Rutgers, the Orange will play host to Connecticut on Nov. 20 in its final conference game. And the Huskies will come into the Carrier Dome with eight days of rest – having last played tonight (Nov. 11) against Pittsburgh, a game UConn had 12 days to rest up for after an Oct. 29 win at West Virginia.

SU head coach Doug Marrone, who like Louisville coach Charlie Strong is in the midst of a rebuilding project, voiced frustration about the situation during his weekly news conference Nov. 1.

“We don’t have a (second) bye week,” he said. “Louisville and Syracuse are the only two teams that don’t have a bye (during the league season).”

“I understand why it’s like that, but when you’re trying to get back to where you want to be as a program … I’m sure Louisville might be going through the same thing … it is difficult," he said, adding, "If we didn’t have (so many) injuries, I probably wouldn’t say anything about it.”

Marrone declined to comment further this week, saying he didn’t want to be perceived as making excuses. He said he’s voiced his concerns to the league.

Nick Carparelli, a Big East senior associate commissioner in charge of football and marketing, said Monday that the conference was obligated to supply games for TV on Dec. 4 – a weekend that, technically, isn’t a part of the 13-week regular season.

In early February, ESPN requested three games – Cincinnati at Pittsburgh, Rutgers at West Virginia and UConn at South Florida – to be shown Dec. 4 on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, Carparelli said. That’s the weekend championship games will be played in the Southeastern, Atlantic Coast and Big 12 conferences, games that determine BCS bowl bids.

“It’s our TV partners’ desires,” he said. “Again, they want games that will draw the greatest ratings.”

Carparelli said that ESPN, which is owned by ABC, in return guaranteed that all three of the Dec. 4 games would be aired, regardless of their relevance.

As far as mid-week games, played Wednesday, Thursday or Friday on ESPN or ESPN2, Carparelli said there are 10 such dates, and the network wants certain choices for those matchups – games people will tune in for.

SU has not, historically, been willing to host mid-week games on campus, because of the disruption to academics and other issues. But the Orange has traveled to other venues for such games. Without a second bye week, however, a mid-week game wouldn’t offer the extra rest.

Carparelli also said that the “contact” period for football recruiting begins Nov. 28, so some coaches, who maybe aren’t having great seasons, would prefer not to play the weekend of Dec. 4 so they can hit the recruiting trail.